• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5708 0

was, after all, safe enough, firmly bracketed over tiles with nothing but the spiralling emptiness of the stairwell above. At his elbow, close to the torch, the gracefully inclined face of Venus had taken on a sly vitality with the dancing of light and shadow. What trouble she had caused, the Major mused, before they had been able to restore her to the softly glowing purity of white marble; that descent of dust which, year by year, had grown like black hair on her head and neck, on her shoulders and sloping breasts, had also found its way into the crevices of scanty marble cloth that failed to clothe her. Quite impossible to get at it with a feather duster! But he and Edward, fanatical and perfectionist, had decided she must be as white as snow; nothing less would suit them. So Seán Murphy had been summoned and the three of them, with starting eyes and bulging veins, had lifted her off her pedestal and staggered out of the door, around the house, down through the kitchens and into the laundry where the maids were waiting for her with scrubbing-brushes and a steaming soapy bath. They had set to work, blushing and tittering and teasing Seán Murphy as if what they were doing was somehow indecent. Then, rinsed and dried and wrapped in clean towels, they had taken her back and set her up once more.

All their spring-cleaning had been fun! The Major was smiling at the recollection. But as his eye wandered over the gleaming black and white chessboard of tiles his smile faded —for sitting on a white tile in the very middle of the floor was a plump grey rat. Almost immediately, startled by the Major’s movement, it crept away under one of the sofas and vanished from sight. Frowning, the Major made his way towards the ballroom. This was something they had not envisaged when they had gone upstairs to make their grim harvest of cats. Those cats hadn’t been eating the air! A steady grey stream of nourishment had been coming up into the house: rats from the cellars and the pond, mice from the fields and the barn. A cat, however wild and savage, can always be passed off as a pet. Not so with rats. Fortunately there was still a sizeable residue of appetites in the upper storeys. Perhaps the rats would remain out of sight until the guests had gone home.

The orchestra was playing a foxtrot. As the Major made his way towards the ballroom, the lively melody of “Dreamland Lover” grew louder, blending with laughter and the chatter of voices, the rhythmic movement of the dancers on the parquet floor which was shining like a pool of ice. What a fine time everyone must be having! Once again he allowed himself a touch of optimism about the success of the evening.

In the doorway he hesitated. He had seen Sarah and, although his mind continued to register calmly a variety of impressions which had nothing whatever to do with her, he was aware of a solid pulse throbbing in his neck and chest. Tonight he would propose!

The ballroom was decorated with banks of violets which added a sweet fragrance to the faint odours of cologne and perfume drifting from behind the delicate ears of the ladies and the heavier aroma of tobacco-smoke from the thickly moustached lips of their companions. Sarah was sitting beside one of these banks of violets, her face slightly blurred by a mist of green ferns. Behind her chair, with his right hand over his heart as if posing for a photograph, stood Captain Bolton, watching the dancers (of whom there did not seem to be a great many). It was Bolton’s other hand which caught the Major’s eye; the palm rested on the back of Sarah’s chair but the fingertips trailed carelessly forward on to her shoulder. As the Major watched, he bent his head to say something to her, delicately encircling her naked upper arm with finger and thumb as he did so. The finger whitened for an instant, but Sarah continued to look straight ahead. Her face was dark and closed. She might have been unaware that Bolton was standing behind her.

Having started in her direction, the Major now changed his mind. He had a great deal of dancing to do; he had cheerfully